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XtraBlatt issue 01-2017

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  • Krone
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MENSCHEN INSIGHT RUBRIK

MENSCHEN INSIGHT RUBRIK Spare parts and wear parts ORIGINAL IS OPTIMAL Rudi Hackmann manages the Krone replacement parts department. During the forage and straw harvests, wearing down of machinery parts is unavoidable. There’s then a big temptation to use non-original parts as replacements. This may be cheaper, but certainly not the right choice, according to Rudi Hackmann, Krone spare parts department manager. Probably everyone has certain emotive words which, on hearing, send the respective blood pressure soaring. One such phrase for Rudi Hackmann, manager of the Krone spare parts department, is “Suitable forv...” Just about every farmer and contractor searching through catalogues or the Internet for spare parts or wearing part replacements for machinery must have come across the term. With “Suitable for” the illusion is given that this part is suitable for the machine. But this is not actually correct. The replacement is not then a precisely-engineered Krone original part but, instead, a copy from a third party: a version that looks the same but is lower-priced. Anyone thinking that such a product fitted in the machine is equivalent to a genuine spare part in terms of performance, has been led up the garden path. It’s a case of cheap, but guaranteed not price-efficient.” for instance, or even within the mower cutterbar at the spur gears. The resultant repair costs are considerable. Additionally, components of the non-original part can foreseeably loosen and fly off, the bolts of the knife carriers being only welded onto the copy replacement. This is a serious risk to safety! With the original replacement part, these are stamped and thereby offer absolutely more secure attachment of the knife.” DANGEROUS DEFECTS He proves the veracity of this statement with the example of a mower, more precisely the mower drum and knife carriers. “With these in mind we have taken the genuine Krone components and intensively compared them with copies claimed as suitable for the purpose. Among the results was the discovery that material wear resistance of our original knife carriers was up to three times greater than that of the copy. Formulated in another way: the wear resistance as well as the reliability were dramatically bad with the cheap part, although this cannot be seen at first glance by the customer.” The same thing applied in this comparison regarding effects on centrifugal force through imbalance, points out Rudi Hackmann. In this case, the non-original part performed about 130 times worse than the original. “The resultant costs thereby can be enormous, for instance through damage to the transmission by such a serious imbalance. One should be aware that the mower drum, or the knife carriers, are spinning at around 3,000 rpm. If such components are not running almost perfectly vibration-free, substantial damage occurs, in the bearings A closer look at the mower drum additionally shows that the copy was badly finished and also could not then be precisely fitted. This had a very negative effect on crop material throughflow and, through prominent corners and edges, on additional wear. “In short: the replacement parts mentioned have often an up to 20% lower price but bring, through the concrete risks involved, substantially higher subsequent costs – quite apart from the safety aspect,” emphasises Rudi Hackmann. QUALITY PAYS ITSELF That original parts in comparison to the cheap offerings have a somewhat higher price can be attributed to three important grounds, according to this department manager. The first is the higher input into construction and production. “With Krone, all implement or machine components are very carefully constructed and developed in association with the respective machine. In this way, a precision fit and functional safety are guaranteed,” he explains. Secondly, in the actual assembly, all materials and assembly procedures underlie strict quality control. This applies just the same for components produced by suppliers, continues Rudi Hackmann. 30 31